China has just announced the launch of an identification system for intelligent cities based on cryptocurrencies' underlying technology, Global Times reports citing local publication Xinhua News Agency.
The system, which has been developed by three institutes in the city of Shijiazhuang and will assign a unique global digital identification to smart cities across the country, aims to improve connectivity and data exchange between these types of cities.
Zhang Chao, director of the Zhongguancun Industry & Information Research Institute of Two-dimensional Code Technology, one of the system's developers, said "the system will be independently distributed and managed by China, with a unified distribution rule, a resolution of distributed storage and tamper-resistant code."
The Asian giant launched its smart cities project in 2012 and began constructing them in 2016 with the goal of completing at least 100 by next year.
The country's president, Xi Jinping, last month made some controversial statements regarding blockchain in which he urged China to adopt the technology and become a leader in the industry. These statements were received with great enthusiasm by the crypto market, as it is an important step forward for a country that banned ICOs in 2017.
As a result of these statements, the number of search queries for the term "blockchain" in the Chinese search engine Baidu and the instant messaging application WeChat skyrocketed.
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